"Style in Fiction is a welcome addition to a body of writings by stylisticians who have over the past two decades cumulatively increased our knowledge of the workings of language in a range of literary genres."  

Applied Linguistics (about the first edition)

This book describes the ways in which the techniques of linguistic analysis and literary criticism can be combined, and illuminated, through the linguistic study of literary style. It draws on the prose fiction of the last 150 years to demonstrate the approach.